How to complain!

If you want to complain the first thing you need to do is stop, think, take a deep breath, calm down and think "what do I want to achieve by this complaint". This is especially true for any sort of formal complaint.

We all feel a gut reaction to complain when something is wrong. Some times a complaint serves just to make us feel better, or maybe it goes as far as an apology. Some times it is just to register as a number - i.e. you don't expect your complaint to cause any effect but if you are one of a million people complaining maybe it will change things.

Sometimes there really is no point - like someone that wanted to complain to OFCOM because (apparently) one of my staff was rude to her - that really is getting silly.

The best sort of complaint is one where you actually have a clear objective. Where you clearly spell out what was done wrong, why it was wrong, and what needs to now be done to satisfy your complaint. If you can make that clear in a formal complaint you stand a chance of getting what you want, or at least an apology. You stand a good chance of getting a reply at least as you are being rational (rare these days I know).

But we (personally) just had an odd complaint from my daughter's school that she had been off sick for a whole week.

So I have to wonder - what do they actually aim to achieve by making a complaint to us? What action are they expecting us to take differently in future (the future being two more terms ever in school). i.e. what was the actual point of the complaint letter?

After all, she had flu shots as she does every year. In this case the school sent her home ill, and she ended up having to go to hospital (the school know this) and have antibiotics. She was instructed by a doctor to stay at home for a few days until she stopped coughing... You do not get much more clear cut proper ill than that!

So, clearly their complaint cannot be to stop her taking more time off school - we could not do that - after all they sent her home from school in the first place. So maybe they are concerned that she got ill in the first place and how we could reduce that?

If that is the case the only practical steps I can think off that would help reduce the time she is ill is to take her out of school. Clearly being with so many people all day massively increases the chance of infection.

I wonder if that is what they intend by the complaint? I will have to ask them...

I bet, however, it is someone that thinks they are in a position of power and feels good asserting their authority by sending pointless annoying stroppy letters to parents.

But my rant here is a sort of complaint... All I get from this is that I feel a bit better having posted my rant. I doubt the school will see it... To be honest, from a psychological point of view this works well. I expect half of the benefit of facebook and twitter is allowing people to vent. If I don't post something I get cross, with annoyance bottled up. By posting a rant I feel I have filed away that annoyance nicely on a web page where it can disappear in to obscurity without stressing me out.

Isn't psychology magic some times?!